Let's see what we should expect from Microsoft's top and bottom line, as well as some of its specific business units, including Intelligent Cloud, before the company reports its earnings results on Wednesday, January 30.

Alicia Tillman has been chief marketing officer (CMO) at technology firm SAP SAP-DE for just over a year and this week she will attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos for the first time, joining senior marketers from companies including Microsoft MSFT , AT&T T , Unilever ULVR-GB , Dell DELL and Google GOOGL . While SAP chief executive Bill McDermott will take part in a panel on leadership in the Fourth Industrial Revolution as part of the WEF program, Tillman's focus will be on how brands can have a higher purpose.

Month after month of privacy scandals, regulatory threats, trade anxieties and other inauspicious events have soured many investors -- and the public at large -- on companies that were once darlings of the market. Now, companies are trying to build goodwill -- in some cases, by making investments to address the problems that critics charge them with creating. recently announced that it's committing $500 million to support affordable housing in the Seattle area, which has seen housing prices skyrocket 96% over the past eight years, well outpacing the median earnings in the area.

“Honesty, transparency and trust are my key words,” said Charlotte Valeur. It is an interesting priority for the Institute of Directors’ new chair to choose, given that it has been struggling with a governance crisis of its own. The turmoil, which included leaks to the Times newspaper of a conversation that was secretly taped by the IoD’s director-general, Stephen Martin, came against a backdrop of an institute trying to make sense of its purpose.